Abstract
The ketchup problem We’ve all waged battle with a glass ketchup bottle at some point—fighting to get that stubborn tomato slurry to pour without splattering. The process can be frustrating because ketchup is a yield-stress fluid, says Anthony Stickland, a chemical engineer at the University of Melbourne. Like other yield-stress fluids, ketchup is a suspension of solid particles in liquid. “The solids are concentrated enough that the particles form an interconnected network that can withstand a load or a force,” Stickland tells Newscripts. So under small amounts of stress, the fluids behave like solids. But once that force exceeds a threshold—the yield stress—the materials start to flow like a liquid. That’s why ketchup bottles sometimes need a firm whack to get the sauce moving. Stickland recently outlined a three-step process to coax out the condiment. First, shake the bottle with the lid on to evenly mix the ketchup. This gets
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